THE HISTORY OF RODDIS PLYWOOD CORPORATION GIVEN
Highlites from the History of the Roddis Plywood Corporation was the subject
of a talk given by August Roddis to the Northwood County Historical Society.

The Roddis enterprise was the largest employer in Marshfield for about 40 years and the second largest for about 26 years before that so its influence on the history of Marshfield are significant.

W.H. Roddis

W.H. Roddis came to Marshfield in 1894 to invest in and assume the direction of the Hatteberg Veneer Company, founded in 1890 by A.K. Hatteberg, a former Upham Manufacturing Company employee, and in four years was in serious financial difficulty.

W.H. Roddis was able to effect almost immediate improvement in the fortunes of the Hatteberg Veneer Company but his efforts received a decided setback by a fire in April of 1897 which destroyed the main plant. At that point Hatteberg and another stockholder were relieved to sell out to Roddis who then changed the name of the company to Roddis Veneer Company. The new and improved plant built by Roddis which started operating just two months after the first plant was destroyed was so successful that in 1899, it made $30,000, a huge sum in those days.

One of the far reaching decisions W.H. Roddis made for the company was to upgrade its products. He recognized that the abundance of valuable hardwood species in the area - birch, maple, oak, basswood and elm - demanded a higher end product than the cheese boxes and butter tubs that were a large component of Hatteberg’s products, so as soon as it was possible he began producing more plywood and eventually doors.

The Roddis Company did not invent the flush door (a flat slab door) but was the first to recognize its potential and to manufacture it on a large scale.

The flush door was almost an immediate success as architects recognized its superiority for hotels, hospitals, schools and apartment buildings. The Roddis Company made a national reputation on the excellence of its flush doors. It also made a fine reputation on it custom-made plywood. In 1903, the company went into the manufacture of lumber to utilize trees that were not, sufficiently high-grade for veneer and that established a lumber mill at Park Falls and also one in Marshfield.

Fire struck again in 1907 with the destruction of both the Marshfield and Park Falls plants within two weeks of each other, but they were quickly replaced by new plants and the business was again flourishing in a short time. The following year W.H. Roddis was elected mayor of Marshfield. During both World Wars the Marshfield plant was largely devoted to producing materials for the war effort. During World War II it was making interior plywood and doors for the Liberty ships and aircraft plywood for the famous British Mosquito Bomber a reconnaissance plane whose lite frame was made entirely of wood and powerful Rolls Royce engines which enabled it to fly higher and faster than any German plane.

Hamilton Roddis

After graduating from law school, in 1899, and seriously considering a career in law, Hamilton Roddis, the son of W.H. Roddis, yielded to the pleas of his father and joined the company permanently in the fall of that year. Hamilton Roddis assumed the presidency in 1920, after the death of W.H. Roddis, and headed the company until his own death in 1960. By that time the company had 1,000 local employees, 25 warehouses and sales outlets throughout the country, had expanded into Canada, and had annual sales of more than $59,000,000. The company was merged into Weyerhaeuser in August of 1960.

Thus the firm started by A.K. Hatteberg in 1890 has existed for more than 100 years, four under Hatteberg, three years under joint Roddis-Hatteberg ownership, 63 years under Roddis family alone and 31 years under Weyerhaeuser.